In spite of Ella Pamfilova’s
appointment in March, 2016 to “clean house and oversee transparent, democratic
elections,” . . . “a statistical analysis of the official preliminary results
of the country’s September 18 [2016] State Duma elections points to a familiar
story: massive fraud in favor of the ruling United Russia party.”[1] “The
results of the current Duma elections were falsified on the same level as the
Duma and presidential elections of 2011, 2008, and 2007, the most falsified
elections in post-Soviet history, as far as we can tell,” physicist and data
analyst Sergei Shpilkin said to The Atlantic.” In 2008,
Shpilkin estimated that United Russia actually won 277 seats in the Duma
instead of the constitutional majority of 315 that it was awarded.[2] This
means that Putin’s party could unilaterally amend the Russian constitution.
From a constitutional standpoint, either the hurdles in the amendment process
are too low or the election fraud has been so massive the entire form of
government is impaired.
The official
turnout for the 2016 election “was 48 percent, and United Russia polled 54.2
percent of the party-list vote—about 28,272,000 votes. That total gave United
Russia 140 of the 225 party-list seats available in the Duma. . . . In
addition, United Russia candidates won 203 of the 225 contests in
single-mandate districts, giving the party an expected total of 343 deputies in
the 450-seat house.”[3]
With the “projected 343 deputies in the new parliament, United Russia once
again has enough votes to unilaterally alter the constitution.[4]
“By my estimate,”
Shpilkin said, “the scope of the falsification in favor of United Russia in
these elections amounted to approximately 12 million votes.”[5] He
“shows that almost all ‘extra’ votes from polling stations reporting
higher-than-average turnout went to United Russia. That is, a party such as
ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR received virtually the same number
of votes from polling stations reporting a turnout of 95 percent as it did from
stations reporting turnouts of 65 percent. United Russia, by contrast, received
about four times as many at the 95 percent stations.”[6]
Fraud at around
12 million votes is indeed massive, and it is clearly enough to render the
existing constitutional amendment process dysfunctional. A constitution should
not be a document that one party can unilaterally change. The crime, ostensibly
committed by Putin’s party, is sufficient, therefore, to impair the rule of law
from a democratic standpoint.
The problem with reform of the elections has to
do with lessor powers being able to thwart the efforts of the hegemonic party,
whose power could easily block even small reforms. It may well take a huge
groundswell of Russian people uniting to push for meaningful change that would
rid United Russia of its overwhelming claws. For this to occur, the groundswell
would have to be non-partisan rather than going through the extant other
parties; enough solidified power that is yet widespread would have to coalesce
to overpower the power of the United Russia party. Such a cause would naturally
be to safeguard the constitutional system itself from the reach of even the
largest party. This is a formidable feat not only because of the continuing
power of United Russia, but also the power needed to concentrate the diverse
and decentralized power of the people—the popular sovereign, to whom the
Russian government and the constitution should rightfully defer, as an agent
defers to his principal.
[1]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
[2]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
[3]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
[4]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
[5]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
[6]
Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “12
Million Extra Votes for Putin’s Party,” The
Atlantic, September 21, 2016.
